


even if we come upon a language we both know

by AuroraWest



Series: it's not going to matter if we fall down twice [2]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Brotherly Love, Brothers, Frenemies, Gen, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Sanctum Sanctorum (Marvel), Thor (Marvel) Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25109083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraWest/pseuds/AuroraWest
Summary: New York City was ugly right now. Gray, damp, and cold, even though it wasn’t really that cold. The cold didn’t bother Loki, in that it didn’t put him in any danger, but there was nothing he particularly liked about it. But snow was pretty, and it would have been nice to see something falling from the low, iron gray clouds that had been sitting over the city for what felt like weeks.Loki is still at the Sanctum. Strange is still...Strange. And Thor is back on Earth.
Relationships: Loki & Stephen Strange, Loki & Thor (Marvel), Loki & Wong (Marvel), Stephen Strange & Thor
Series: it's not going to matter if we fall down twice [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1680754
Comments: 28
Kudos: 109





	even if we come upon a language we both know

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my beta, [mareebird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mareebird/pseuds/mareebird)!

Strange had assured him it was going to snow.

Then again, Strange had a habit of telling him the weather was going to do something that never materialized. Loki would have liked it if snowed, actually. New York City was ugly right now. Gray, damp, cold even though it wasn’t really _that_ cold. The cold didn’t _bother_ Loki, in that it didn’t put him in any danger, but there was nothing he particularly liked about it. But snow was pretty, and it would have been nice to see something falling from the low, iron gray clouds that had been sitting over the city for what felt like weeks.

It hadn’t snowed yet, though, and Loki was leaning against the wall in the library, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared out the window. Though he would like to say he had better things to do, his primary concern at the moment was that he was starving, and that Strange had said he was bringing dinner back. And that, irritatingly, it had been about thirty minutes longer that it should have been. He’d said he was going to walk to the sushi place to get it because, “If it snows, delivery will take forever.”

But it wasn’t snowing and Strange was _still_ taking forever.

Loki studied his fingernails. Last week, Strange had walked through a portal into the study, then a box had dropped through another portal, rattling as it hit the ground. The cardboard looked damp and worn, like it had been sitting somewhere mildewy and poorly insulated for years.

“What’s that?” Loki had asked, looking up from the obituary section of the newspaper. It was a morbid habit. He didn’t know if Jane Foster would even appear in it. Her name hadn’t yet. But he kept looking.

Kneeling on the floor next to the box, Strange had said, “Everything left to my name after I sold my apartment and went to Kamar-Taj. It’s mostly Christine’s stuff.”

“Who’s Christine?” Loki asked. “You’ve mentioned her before.”

Rummaging around in the box, Strange pulled out a paperback book, then some kind of garment that looked like a shapeless bra made entirely of elastic. “A friend,” he said. “Also an ex.”

Ah. Well, that explained the underwear.

Bored and curious despite himself, Loki had put aside the paper and gone to stand over Strange as he went through the detritus of a failed relationship. “I hope she didn’t miss any of this stuff,” Strange had muttered.

It had all looked like junk to Loki, certainly not anything that a person would miss, though he refrained from saying so. He’d settled down cross-legged on the floor to watch as Strange lifted more items out. A mug that said ‘For Fox Sake,’ a pair of cheap-looking earrings, several pens. Then, a bottle caught his eye. Pointing to it, he asked, “What’s that?”

Strange had snagged it in his shaking fingers. “Nail polish,” he said. “‘Black Like My Soul.’” He snorted. “I bought this for her. She got annoyed at me because I should have known she didn’t wear black nail polish. She didn’t like the name, either.”

Cocking his head, Loki had said, “Can I have it?”

With a shrug, Strange had tossed it to him. “Sure.” Then, he’d paused and asked, “If you like wearing nail polish, why don’t you just do it with a glamor?”

“Because,” Loki had said, vanishing the bottle to his pocket dimension, “I like actually doing it. It’s relaxing.”

Strange had simply shrugged again and kept going through the box.

It was decent nail polish. Plus, Loki had assisted its longevity. He may have preferred not to use a glamor to paint his nails, but he wasn’t above using magic to make the color stay in place longer.

The front door opened and banged shut, and Loki perked up. He left the library and headed for the kitchen, meeting Wong on the stairs. They looked at each other but didn’t exchange words. After practically six months at the Sanctum, Wong and he had reached an uneasy truce. They weren’t friends—in a different way than Strange and Loki weren’t friends—but they weren’t actually enemies. They had an understanding. Wong stayed away from Loki and Loki stayed away from Wong. It worked.

Sometimes, Loki wished he could have a similar arrangement with Strange. But when Strange kept to himself for long enough, Loki found that he got bored—and then he sought Strange out to annoy him. And when Loki was feeling miserable and simply wanted to be left alone, Strange would normally hang around and bother him until Loki forgot why he was feeling miserable. Or, perhaps if he didn’t exactly forget his misery, he could push it aside in favor of arguing with Strange.

The takeout was arranging itself on the kitchen table as Strange washed his hands. He was fastidious about it, probably a holdover from his days as a surgeon.

“No complaints about the delay?” Strange asked.

“I was getting to it,” Loki said, arching an eyebrow as he slid into a chair. Ripping open a pair of chopsticks and pulling his tuna rolls towards himself, he said, “I don’t understand why you can’t just use one of your portals to go back and forth.”

Wong grunted. “That’s frowned upon.”

Rolling his eyes, Loki said, “After you saved the world from Thanos, doesn’t it entitle you lot to a little convenience?”

Strange glanced at him, a hint of a smile tugging at his mouth. “If we start walking through portals all the time in public, everyone will want one.”

Loki smirked and dug into his sushi, liberally smearing wasabi on each roll.

With a flick of his fingers, Strange sent a small plastic container careening across the table. “I got you extra this time so you don’t steal mine.”

“It’s not stealing if you offer it to me.”

“Do I have any choice other than offering it to you when you’re taking it off my plate?”

“Of course,” Loki said airily. “And you freely choose to let me take your condiments, therefore, they’re fair game.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Loki was certain he saw Wong roll his eyes, but he ignored it. Strange was holding his gaze with a tiny, dry smile on his face. His eyes flashed with amusement and though Loki was loathe to admit it, there was something satisfying about making a man like Strange laugh. He got the impression that Strange was used to thinking of himself as the most amusing person in the room. Certainly, he was used to thinking of himself as the smartest.

Insufferable. Obviously. But who didn’t like making someone clever laugh?

Someone banged on the Sanctum’s front door. Strange waved a hand. “I’ve got it, don’t worry.” His mouth was half full of food. Charming. Not that Loki could pretend he wasn’t used to such things, not when Thor was his brother.

A pang went through him at that thought. “A visitor, Strange?” he asked, a lazy sneer in his voice to cover up the ache in his chest. “That’s unusual.”

“Probably the Amazon guy delivering your Christmas present,” Strange said cheerfully.

Loki rolled his eyes. “I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

“Uh huh, yeah.” As he left the kitchen, he said over his shoulder, “Yule, right?”

Clicking his chopsticks in annoyance, Loki muttered, “Right.” He glanced at Wong. “ _Please_ tell me I’m not going to have to suffer through some sort of holiday feast with the two of you.”

Wong’s expression was blank, but somehow, Loki still got the feeling he was being laughed at. “I believe the idea of a Christmas tree in the foyer has been mentioned,” Wong said. “I don’t celebrate Christmas myself.”

At this, Loki propped an elbow on the table and leaned forward, a conspiratorial glint in his eyes. “Then you and I should put a stop to any nonsense he comes up with.”

With a shrug, Wong replied, “Oh, I don’t think so. Stephen deserves to celebrate Christmas if he wants to celebrate Christmas.”

Scowling, Loki asked, “And why is that?”

Wong hesitated, as though he feared he was treading on someone else’s secrets. And that told Loki everything he needed to know. Strange had been _through_ something, was what Wong was thinking; he’d suffered and now was entitled to a saccharine Earth holiday as recompense.

No doubt it was the fact that Strange had given up the Time Stone to Thanos, sacrificed half of all life in the universe, looked into the future and seen what would happen. This was what was so terrible that Wong would submit to the indignity of a massive, towering evergreen for a holiday he didn’t celebrate sitting in the middle of the Sanctum’s foyer. Loki supposed he himself could pretend it was a Yule Tree, but it wasn’t, and he would know that.

Last week, Loki had gone for a walk with Strange, which had turned into a whole _thing_ , with the two of them eventually ending up in Midtown, strolling around Rockefeller Plaza as the afternoon waned. Strange had gestured to the skating rink and asked, a sardonic gleam in his eyes, “Want to go for a spin?”

“Absolutely not,” Loki had replied stiffly.

Strange had shot that obnoxious, crooked grin at him and said, “Yeah, probably for the best, anyway. I couldn’t lace up the skates.”

There had been something so wistful about this that Loki had felt a bit bad about the tone he’d used. They’d watched the revelers skating, families laughing, couples holding hands. Loki had felt bereft in a way that he knew he should have been used to.

“I want to get a tree for the Sanctum,” Strange had said _apropros_ of nothing. Well, perhaps not—it was _apropros_ of the giant tree in front of them.

Loki hadn’t known what to say at first. “Are you planning on installing a skating rink, as well?”

Strange had glanced at him and chuckled. “Yeah, I’m not sure about that, but I’ll keep it in mind. I’ll name it after you if we ever put it in.”

Rolling his eyes, Loki had said, “Please don’t.”

Suddenly, the tree came alive, blazing with colored lights. A collective gasp went up from the gathered crowd. All around them, people had pulled out their phones and began snapping photos, holding them at the ends of poles—Strange had told him they were called ‘selfie sticks’—or just their outstretched arms to get their entire group in the photo. The couple next to them at the railing had started kissing and Loki had rolled his eyes again. If Strange opened his mouth and asked Loki if he wanted him to take a picture, Loki probably would have killed him right there.

He hadn’t. The two of them stood in silence for a few more minutes, and then, in wordless agreement, they’d left.

Loki picked up a tuna roll with his chopsticks. “I’m not celebrating anything the two of you come up with.”

Wong’s eyebrows inched up. Somehow, it made him look even more unimpressed than he usually did. Loki smirked and dropped the tuna roll into his mouth. Out in the foyer, Strange was pulling the creaky front door open.

“I need to talk to you, Strange!” a voice thundered.

Loki choked, grabbing at the edge of the table and digging his fingernails in. He really, truly couldn’t breathe, and after thumping himself on the chest a few times, Wong seemed to get the idea. He cast a spell and with an explosion of air, a half eaten tuna roll went rocketing out of Loki’s throat, bouncing across the table and coming to rest near the edge.

He slouched over his remaining food, breathing hard. His imagination was playing tricks on him. His imagination was playing tricks on him and he was so ready to believe it that he’d almost choked to death on a piece of sushi. He was a fool. The hope, the desperate, stupid, blinding hope that had risen in him was nothing but an illusion.

But then.

But then, Strange said, “Thor. Uh—you’re back on Earth.”

Loki was on his feet without any memory of standing up. Pain flared in his hip. He must have banged it on the table as he stood. He didn’t care.

_Thor_.

He took two steps towards the door. But Wong said quietly, “Stop.”

And Loki did it. Gods damn him, he did it. “Why?” he asked, staring at the open door. The Sanctum’s front door wasn’t visible from there, but all he needed to do was take another few steps and he’d be able to see it. He’d be able to see his brother.

His heart swelled in his chest until he couldn’t breathe and he was choking all over again. Thor was out there. Thor, whom Loki had been willing to give his life for on _The Statesman_ , only to have a version of himself from an alternate reality show up and take that from him. Thor, who had spent the last five years grieving and losing himself. Thor was _here._

“Stephen would tell you if this was the right time for you and your brother to reunite,” Wong said. He had come around the table and was standing closer to Loki, holding out a hand as though Loki was a particularly skittish horse who might bolt at any moment. Or perhaps a cat who couldn’t be trusted not to strike with its claws.

In the foyer, Thor was speaking again. “Yes, I got back this morning. The Guardians dropped me off and I came straight here. There’s something I must discuss with you, Strange, something Rocket said to me—”

“Okay, yeah, sure, we can do that; why don’t you just uh, have a seat—” Strange said.

There was a disgruntled noise from Thor as he said, “I don’t like it when you do that teleporting thing, wizard.”

“Uh huh. Can you just—I need a second, I left something…left something on the stove…”

With that, Strange dashed back into the kitchen, practically crashing into Loki. His eyes widened, then flashed, and he waved a hand. The air shimmered. Probably a silencing spell, but Loki didn’t care enough to ask. “No,” Strange said.

“I beg your pardon?” Loki growled.

“This isn’t the time.” Strange’s tone was firm.

Wong shrugged. “That’s exactly what I told him.”

With an inarticulate growl, Loki tried to push past Strange. But Strange grabbed his shoulders and locked his full weight against Loki. It was less his strength—which was, obviously, human, and thus nothing much to speak of—than the fact that he’d done it at all. Loki stopped.

The two of them stared at each other, Loki glaring, Strange’s eyes blazing in a way that Loki had rarely, if ever, seen. “ _No_ ,” Strange repeated. “I’m sorry, Loki. I really am. But no.”

This made Loki want to scream. “How do you know this isn’t the time?”

Strange’s fingers were still gripping his shoulders. “I just do.”

Quietly, Wong said, “We could just use the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak to restrain him.”

“You _dare_ ,” Loki spat, jerking his shoulders out of Strange’s grip.

But Strange held up a hand and gave Wong a warning look. Wong lapsed into silence and Strange’s eyes returned to Loki’s. “I’m not trying to be an asshole,” Strange said quietly. “I swear to you. But this isn’t the time.”

For a long, long moment, Loki and Strange held each other’s gazes. Loki’s glare felt frozen in place. Strange’s eyes didn’t waver.

Teeth and claws shredded everything in Loki’s chest. Every single thing within him wanted to walk past Strange, walk through that door and say, _Hello, brother, you look well._

Except Strange hadn’t lied to him, not once. Even with everything Loki had done, Strange had shown an amount of trust in him that no one else on Earth ever had—except maybe Jane Foster, whom Loki was sure must be dead by now, her body chewed up by cancer, even if he hadn’t spotted her name in the obituary section. Strange knew Loki had the Tesseract and had never asked to take it into his keeping; he knew Loki had _used_ the Tesseract after explicitly being told not to, and used it, on top of that, to travel to New Asgard, a place he’d been expressly forbidden to visit. And still, Strange had never said a word.

Whatever ill will was between them—and there was plenty—Loki realized something: he trusted Stephen Strange. He trusted him to tell the truth, to do his best not to harm Loki, to not stand in the way of seeing Thor again when the time _was_ right. He trusted that Strange wasn’t just being an arsehole.

He trusted that Strange meant what he said.

There were so few people in Loki’s life whom he could say that about. That fact that he could say it about Strange was—startling. Confusing. Unbelievable. But it was also undeniable.

So Loki stepped back and clenched his fists. “Fine.”

It hurt to say it. It hurt as much as all the worst things he’d ever said.

Strange held his gaze, then nodded. When he turned and left, Loki remained exactly where he was. If he wouldn’t be allowed to see his brother, at least he could hear him.

“Sorry about that,” Strange said as his footsteps echoed on the foyer’s hardwood floor.

“What are you making?” Thor asked.

There was a pause. “Sorry?”

“You said you left something cooking.”

“Oh. Uh…muffins. What can I do for you, Thor?”

“What kind?”

Another pause. “What kind?”

“Yes.” Thor sounded as though he thought Strange was possibly not all there. “There are different flavors. Surely you’re aware of this? Blueberry, cranberry orange, chocolate, bran…”

Loki’s brow furrowed. What was wrong with Thor? Why was he talking about _muffins_ , of all things? When he’d come in the door, there had been purpose in his voice. Now he seemed to be…drifting. Loki knew that Thor hadn’t done well in the past five years; knew there was something wrong, that his grief at losing their father, Asgard, Heimdall, and Loki had ground him down. But somehow, he hadn’t expected to hear it so clearly in Thor’s voice.

“Right, yeah,” Strange said. “Um—blueberry, I think it said on the box.” If there had been pity in his voice, Loki might have stormed out there, consequences be damned. The idea of a human pitying his brother filled him with rage, even though it hadn’t actually happened. “Why are you here?”

A chair creaked. Loki glanced over his shoulder at Wong and hissed, “May I at least _look_ at my brother, even if I’m not allowed to speak to him?”

Wong hesitated, then said, “Don’t let him see you.”

This was fair, even if Loki didn’t like it. For good measure, he cast a glamor over himself, something close to invisibility, though it was more like camouflage. Then he took a step forward and slowly, carefully, peered around the corner.

What he saw was less shocking than confusing. On the other side of the foyer, Strange and another man were sitting in armchairs looking at each other. Loki blinked, his brow furrowing in confusion. Whoever Strange was talking to, it couldn’t possibly be Thor.

Bewilderment washed over him. Why had Strange and Wong acted like this was a problem? That man _couldn’t_ be Thor. He was overweight, for one thing, his body shapeless under the slovenly hoodie and sweatpants he was wearing. Fingerless, ratty woolen gloves covered his hands. And whatever was on his feet couldn’t be called shoes. They looked more like rubber clogs. They were terrible, whatever they were.

Loki’s eyes drifted up to the man’s face. His beard was long, unkept and wild, as was his hair. Neither looked like they had been washed in the recent past. And Thor had an eyepatch. This man didn’t have an eyepatch. Case closed. It wasn’t Thor. It couldn’t be Thor. This sad, lost, shambles of a man could not be his brother.

Loki almost turned around to laugh at Wong for making this mistake. But then he looked at the man’s eyes.

And his heart twisted, wrung itself so tight that he thought it might be failing. His lungs flattened to nothing and he tried to swallow, but couldn’t.

One of his eyes was brown. The other, though…the other was blue. And looking at them exposed the lie that he’d been busy telling himself for the past thirty seconds.

Of course it was Thor.

Even knowing that something wasn’t right with him, that he’d grieved so hard and so long that it had changed him, couldn’t have prepared Loki for the sight of him.

Thor shifted, looking around the Sanctum. He looked lost. Lost and so very, very sad. He pulled a flask from somewhere, unscrewed the top, and took a swig. It didn’t feel so long ago that the two of them had stood facing Strange in this place. Thor hadn’t been especially keen on Loki attacking the wizard. He also hadn’t been terribly strident in his attempt to get Loki to cease and desist.

Loki’s fingers curled around the door frame and he leaned into it, feeling like he couldn’t breathe. It hadn’t been that long for _him._ For Thor, it had been. For Thor, it had been even longer than the actual number of years that had passed.

Finally, Thor’s gaze returned to Strange, who was waiting patiently. “I’m here because…I have to ask you something, Strange,” Thor said. The fire in his voice was gone. Now, he simply sounded cowed. Who was this person who looked so much like his brother?

Strange held out a hand. “Go ahead.”

But Thor didn’t speak right away. He took another pull from his flask, then said, “You know, I remember this place. From when I was here before?” There was a smile on his face, but there was nothing behind it. Or rather, there was nothing but devastation behind it. “I hope I didn’t…I mean, I think I…I still had my hammer, and—”

“You smashed up the place?” Strange said, folding his hands in his lap. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. The damage wasn’t permanent. Benefit of being a Master of the Mystic Arts.” Raising an eyebrow, he added, “But now that you’re back on Earth, I can invoice you.”

“Oh…” Thor looked troubled. “No, you don’t understand, Strange. I don’t have any money. You know, don’t you? You do know? About—Ragnarok, and…and what…happened? New Asgard?”

Strange glanced down at his folded hands. “Yeah, I’m up to speed.” He didn’t bother to clarify to Thor that he’d been joking.

Something in Loki’s chest was crawling around, tearing everything apart.

Nodding slowly, Thor said, “Good, good. Well, it’s not good. Things aren’t really…” He looked down at his lap, fiddling with the flask, rolling the cap between his fingers. Then, he looked up, directly at Strange. His eyes flashed and Loki felt himself leaning forward. “Rocket told me you saw fourteen million futures,” Thor said, a rumble in his voice that reminded Loki of thunder.

There was a silence. Or—possibly that was just the ringing in Loki’s ears.

“I did,” Strange said. His tone was so even. How could he be so calm? “I’ve been over this _ad nauseam_ with the American government and Fury—”

“Did it have to be this way?” Thor asked, desperation in his voice. “Did I have to lose…” He swallowed. “Everything?”

Strange opened his mouth, then closed it. Mentally, Loki dared him to tell Thor that he hadn’t lost everything. That he still had _New Asgard_ (even in his head, he couldn’t help but sneer the words). Obviously, he wouldn’t tell Thor that his brother was alive and well and standing not twenty feet away from him. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t truly him that Thor mourned. After all, he hadn’t actually said Loki’s name.

Letting out a breath, Strange said, “Look, Thor, I…” Trepidation flickered over his face, trepidation and awkwardness. It gave Loki a vicious pleasure. Not so calm, then. Watching Strange squirm was worth something. “I’m sorry for your loss. All your losses. But that stuff…I couldn’t change it—”

“Yes, yes, I know all that,” Thor said, waving a hand. The cap of his flask went flying, pinging off the floor somewhere in the shadows. Strange flicked a wrist and it returned, settling into place on the flask and twisting tight. A spell that was _also_ a giant hint. Loki glowered at Strange, though the man couldn’t see him. Though, if he was being honest, he was in agreement with Strange that Thor appeared to have had rather too much to drink.

Leaning forward, Thor went on, “I know all about time travel and not changing the past but what I want to _know_ is.” He sucked in a deep breath. “What I want to know is, did you see a way for me to bring anyone…back?”

“Back?” Strange asked, the emphasis on this word so delicate, so careful, that Loki was certain there was no way that Thor had caught it. But Loki did, and it made him grateful to the wizard. Thor wasn’t well, that was very clear. And Strange was being…patient with him. Almost gentle.

Thor nodded, one quick jerk of his head. “I…” he began, then stopped and cleared his throat. “There are…” But he stopped again, this time shaking his head, as though he needed to clear that, too. Loki could believe it. His fingers tightened around the door frame. “I kept expecting him to come back, Strange,” Thor finally said.

The silence that followed this was complete. Oppressive. Smothering. There were spells on the Sanctum to keep out the noise of the city but at that moment, Loki wished there weren’t.

“Loki, you mean,” Strange said, and this time his voice was gentle enough that Thor couldn’t fail to hear it.

Thor’s throat bobbed. “I haven’t…” he said, his tone strangled, “…haven’t heard that name in over five years.” Desperately, he leaned forward. “He was never truly dead before, all the times I thought he was. I—I may not be able to get Heimdall back, or any of the others that were lost, but he…he survives. My brother survives. I thought you could tell me when I might…or if there’s a way…you can see things, Strange, different futures. Is there not a way to…can you not look into different futures and find the one where he lives, and I can do what needs to be done to bring that future to pass?”

This time, what Loki heard was definitely just the ringing in his ears. He preferred not to think of himself as impulsive. He preferred to think of himself as sensible, someone who did the smart thing, who played the long game.

He took one step outside the kitchen. Strange turned and met his eyes. The look in them stopped Loki dead in his tracks. Strange shouldn’t have been able to see him, not with his glamor. But somehow, he could.

Wong spoke behind him. “Stephen prefers that you aren’t restrained. I’m doing what he asks out of courtesy to him. If you cannot obey instructions, I have no qualms about restraining you by whatever means are necessary.”

“ _Obey?_ ” Loki hissed, whirling. Wong looked as impassive as always. With a growl, Loki turned back to Thor. Watching this was tearing him apart. Strange caught his eye one more time before going back to his conversation with Thor.

“Thor,” Strange said quietly. “That’s not how it works.” He hesitated. “Anyway, I don’t have the Time Stone anymore. Even if I wasn’t ethically bound to _not_ do what you’re asking, I don’t have any power to look into the future.”

There was a noise from Thor that might have been understanding. He was nodding slowly, but he looked stricken. “Right…I just thought that…well, perhaps, since you’re a very powerful wizard, you would know of some way…”

This was clumsy flattery. Did Thor really expect it to work? Loki watched as Strange’s shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “I don’t,” Strange said.

A long silence followed these words. Thor’s fingers worried at his flask, twisting the cap on and off, but he didn’t take another drink. Under his wild mess of a beard, his mouth was moving, as though he was trying to speak, but the words wouldn’t form.

“But,” he finally said, “surely—in fourteen million futures, surely there was one where he returned. Surely there was one where my brother lived?”

Something made Loki watch Strange in this moment, rather than Thor. He watched as Strange’s hands clenched into loose fists, perhaps because his injury kept him from tightening them further. “Even if there was one,” Strange said, “what would be the odds of it being the same future where we defeated Thanos?”

“Did you see it, Strange?” Thor asked, his voice hoarse. “Did you see him?”

Strange hesitated. “I can’t remember everything I saw.”

This was a lie—the first one, actually, besides the stupid one about the muffins, that Strange had told. Strange remembered everything with his photographic memory. But Thor didn’t know that. If Thor did, it would have made him suspicious, but Strange knew _that_ , too; knew that he’d never said anything to Thor about his memory. He’d probably run through everyone he’d ever shared this fact about himself with, determined that none of them could have come into contact with Thor, and decided that he could freely say it.

There was something impressive about this mental calculation.

Loki still didn’t like it. The longer he stood there listening to Strange deflect Thor’s questions and his desperate, horrible grief, the more it felt like storm clouds were building inside him, piling themselves into thunderheads, boiling with energy that would have to go somewhere.

Thor finally stilled, the flask falling out of his hands to his lap. He swallowed hard and his head dropped forward, his unkempt hair curtaining his face. “When Rocket told me of all the futures you’d seen, it was the first time I felt anything like…like hope in so long,” he said so softly that Loki had to strain to hear. “I just thought…”

But he trailed off and put a hand to his face, pushing the back of it, with its filthy glove, into his mouth. A muffled sob escaped anyway.

If Loki hadn’t been leaning against the wall, if Wong’s eyes hadn’t been boring into the back of his head, he thought he might have sunk, weak-kneed, to a crouch. The two of them, Strange and Wong, expected him to stand here and watch his brother break down and cry. When this was over, he’d kill them both. The storm inside him blackened.

“Are you—are you crying?” Strange asked, sounding alarmed.

Thor sniffled and covered his eyes with his hand. He didn’t answer, but then again, he didn’t need to, because the answer was clearly _yes_. From where he was standing, Loki could see tears dripping down his cheeks into his beard. When was the last time he’d seen Thor cry? It was difficult even to recall one. When they were children, perhaps? But Loki couldn’t pin down a specific memory. Thor didn’t _cry_. He just didn’t.

No, that was wrong—he had cried when he’d been held at the SHIELD facility and Loki had come to see him, to lie to him that he was responsible for their father’s death. He’d thought, then, that he would relish Thor’s misery. He had been wrong.

Thor’s crying was even worse now. Quiet, desperate, not sobbing, but tears falling steadily, tears which he was no longer making any attempt to stop or hide.

The only consolation was the tense set of Strange’s shoulders. The man had the worst bedside manner of anyone Loki had ever met, and Odin had been his father. Well, perhaps Strange wasn’t as bad as Odin. It would be difficult to be worse than Odin.

“Why do the Norns want me to walk this path entirely alone?” Thor asked, his voice thick with tears and breaking. “Is this a punishment?”

“I’m not, uh, really religious…” Strange said.

Thor’s shoulders bowed. Somehow, Loki’s brother, the God of Thunder, a massive presence, a force of nature, looked tiny sitting in his armchair in the Sanctum’s foyer. He looked like nothing but a man. Nothing but a broken man.

Loki tasted blood and realized he was biting his lip.

“He came home,” Thor said. His voice sounded like something inside him was splintering into a million pieces. “After everything. He came home.”

Thor was talking about him. His brother was crying over _him._ Loki knew this, and somehow, it still made every muscle in his body go taut, still made his stomach clench into a knot. He was afraid he might throw up.

Strange didn’t say anything. His fingers were still curled into fists. “I’m sorry,” he said. The awkwardness had died away and his tone sounded gentle again. “I wish things could have been different for you.”

Wordlessly, Thor nodded, though his head remained bowed and his hand was still over his face. His shoulders shuddered a few more times. Neither he nor Strange moved. Strange made no attempt to comfort Thor, but at least that also meant he wasn’t patronizing him.

It was hard to believe it had been more than five years since Loki’s ‘death.’ Thor’s pain was still so raw. To see him, you’d think no time had passed at all.

Then again, for an Asgardian, what was five years? Thor had a lifetime stretching out in front of him—millennia to mourn the loss of his friends, his family, his home, and his people. To mourn _Loki_ , of all people. How was it possible that his death was responsible for even a small part of this? How could Thor have become so broken because of _him?_

Finally, Thor wiped the back of his glove across his nose. He slowly stood, his chair creaking as he braced himself on the arms to rise. “I’m sorry for troubling you,” he said, sounding dazed.

Strange got to his feet as well. “It was no trouble,” he said. He hesitated. “I’m sorry that things had to be this way.”

Thor nodded and swallowed a few times, struggling to speak. “I won’t take any more of your time,” he said. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“Yeah,” Strange said, sounding like he had no idea what the right tone was to take. As he walked Thor to the door to let him out, he added, the barest hint of admonishment in his voice, “Maybe call next time you want to drop in.”

“Oh.” Patting at his sweatpants, Thor said, “Yes. I have a phone now. I could have called.” One of his hands clenched around a fistful of his hoodie like some kind of nervous tic. “I will next time.”

It was difficult to imagine a ‘next time.’ What reason did this Thor have to come to New York to speak to a Master of the Mystic Arts? What reason did this Thor have to do _anything?_ Loki suddenly felt a crushing weight on his chest and his windpipe, gravity pushing in on him with a strength it normally didn’t have. He’d envisioned Thor having some sort of crisis; a funk that Loki could swoop in and repair. The fact that he was terrible at repairing anything was unimportant—he would find a way.

But this? This was unfixable. This was beyond him. This was beyond anyone. His Thor was gone, and in his place was someone Loki barely recognized. What was he supposed to do? He had never succeeded in fixing or repairing anything in his life. He was a destroyer. Even the way he’d saved his people was to destroy their home.

Strange had lied to him about the extent of Thor’s grief. He had not prepared Loki for what it actually looked like, for how much of a shell Thor actually was.

There was a further exchange of pleasantries, but the ringing in Loki’s ears got louder and louder and he couldn’t hear it. Thor was leaving, but Loki didn’t feel the stab of unhappiness and desperation that he’d expected to. He felt…

The thought shamed him. After so many months of wanting nothing more than to find his brother and tell him he was alive, now that Thor was walking out the door, he was _relieved._ Loki’s stomach clenched into a tight, hard knot and he closed his eyes.

The front door slammed shut and the bang of it seemed to unleash something in Loki. His glamor dropped away. The storm that had been brewing inside him exploded, ripping through him with the force of a gale. Suddenly, everything that Strange had said to Thor, everything he’d never told Loki, hit him, and he wanted nothing more than to scream.

Wong left the kitchen, glancing at Loki as he did so, but Loki barely noticed him. There was only one person in the world that mattered right now, and he was walking into the kitchen, his eyes downcast, a thoughtful expression on his face as though he was thinking about a particularly difficult incantation, instead of the fact that Thor Odinson had just fallen apart in front of him. 

Strange went straight for the table. For his _dinner_. And that did it.

Fury tore through Loki and with two steps he was in Strange’s face. He grabbed a fistful of the front of Strange’s clothes and shoved him up against the refrigerator. Strange’s back hit it with a hard, hollow thump. Loki didn’t loosen his grip, instead holding him tighter in place, grinding his knuckles into Strange’s chest. “Fourteen _million_ futures?” he snarled. “You saw fourteen _million_ futures?”

“Fourteen million, six hundred and five,” Strange said, his tone hard, but unconcerned.

“Then why the _hel_ didn’t you choose a better one?” Loki yelled, his teeth bared.

Strange’s eyes narrowed, but he made no attempt to get away from Loki. Like he thought Loki wouldn’t hurt him. Like he thought he was safe, either through his own magic or the goodness of Loki’s heart. “Thanos was coming,” he said. “I didn’t have a lot of time.”

With a harsh laugh, Loki said, “I know _all_ about Thanos coming—he came for _me_ , remember? And I did every fucking thing I could to—”

To salvage what was left to be salvaged, to save as many lives as he could, to try to make up for the fact that it was all his fault to begin with. “ _Why didn’t you choose a better one?_ ” he growled again.

“You were already dead,” Strange said. “Nothing I could have done would have changed that—”

“I don’t care about _myself!_ ” Loki exploded. “You could have kept _looking_ , you could have found a future where Thor got _better_ , where another universe didn’t have to be wiped from existence because of something _I_ did—”

At this, Strange’s eyes flashed. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I chose the future I did _because_ of you and Thor?”

Abruptly, Loki let go of him, stumbling back. “What?” he asked, all his anger draining away.

Straightening his clothes, Strange muttered, “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

Loki stared at him, his face feeling frozen, his heart seeming to stop beating. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Strange met his eyes. “Thanos was coming. I saw a future where we won. I took the chance I saw.”

His mouth dry, Loki said, “That isn’t what you just said. You—”

There were no words. “What more did you see?” Loki asked. “What did you see of Thor and me?”

Finally, Strange looked away. He didn’t speak. Then, he said in a quiet voice, “Thor will never fully heal. But having you back will help.”

Loki took a step closer to Strange, almost without realizing it. “Seeing this was one of the reasons you chose this future?”

With a soft, derisive noise—aimed, Loki thought, at himself—Strange replied, “I had to lead Stark like a lamb to the slaughter, but yeah, you and Thor being together again, that was…” He hesitated again, then shook his head. “I saw too much, too many fragments. I can’t tell you, anyway. I’m already telling you too much.” He raised a shaking hand to his forehead and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Why?” Loki asked. He didn’t mean _why can’t you tell me_ , but he thought Strange knew that.

There was a silence. Then, Strange said, “Because you and Thor still have things to do.”

It wasn’t the first time that it had occurred to Loki that Strange carried immense guilt, but it may have been the first time he’d really _thought_ about it. Strange had made a choice. That choice had resulted in half the life in the universe being wiped out. Even if he’d known it was only temporary, Loki knew firsthand that it was a terrible burden to bear.

And Strange had clearly seen other deaths, permanent ones, that would occur. Stark’s, obviously. But also all the accidental deaths, the incidental ones, of all the people who hadn’t been taken by the Snap but had lived, and then died, because of its effects. The people who weren’t larger than life, who weren’t Avengers, but who were simply driving to work, or on an airplane to go on vacation. Who didn’t get the medicine they needed, didn’t get to the hospital, didn’t get enough to eat. Strange was a doctor. All these deaths on his conscience would bother him.

“It’s not easy,” Strange said, looking down at his trembling hands, “when you have to choose between a bad option and a worse one. I knew Stark would do what needed to be done. And I didn’t like the guy. But setting a future in motion where I _knew_ how much life would be lost? Where I knew I had to tell someone, ‘you have to die for the rest of us to live?’ That…” He stopped speaking. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “That sucked. It sucked, Odinson.”

Loki was seized by an absurd desire to say something…comforting. Or if not comforting, something that would indicate that he sympathized with this guilt. That it wasn’t alien to him. But Strange knew that already. Strange clearly knew far more than he’d ever let on. So Loki remained silent.

With a sigh, Strange added, “Knowing you were coming back, that you and Thor would save lives, it’s one of the things that helps.”

Loki said nothing. Finally, though, he asked, “You’ve told me before that the further from the Battle of Earth you looked, the more the possibilities fragmented. What if Thor and I don’t save any lives at all? What if the future you saw has already taken a turn that you didn’t anticipate?”

Strange’s hands seemed to be shaking more than usual. He hugged his arms over his chest, tucking his hands under them. It was one of the most obvious attempts he’d made to hide the tremor that Loki had ever seen from him. “I hope that it has,” he said.

Narrowing his eyes, Loki said, “You just told me the idea of Thor and me saving lives—”

“Yeah, maybe I saw stuff that I don’t want to happen,” Strange interrupted.

They stared at each other. Loki’s narrowed eyes turned to a more curious study of Strange. “You’re very cryptic, Doctor,” he finally said.

Strange snorted. “Part of the gig. You don’t get to look into the future and tell everyone what you saw. If you tell, it probably won’t happen.”

“So if there’s something you don’t want to happen, why don’t you just tell everyone about it?” Loki said.

Strange’s mouth opened, then closed. He swallowed. And Loki thought he actually might tell, that he might spill however many years of the future’s secrets he’d seen. But in the end, he just smiled wryly and said, “Nice try.”

It hadn’t been, really. In fact, if anything, it had been sincere. Loki had gotten the impression before that Strange had seen something that kept him up at night, that seemed to terrify him. They weren’t friends, Loki and Stephen Strange. But Loki didn’t wish him ill. If all it took to prevent an unpleasant future was speaking of it, then it seemed an obvious choice.

Of course, it also seemed obvious that it wasn’t so simple. It seemed more of an excuse, a way to protect himself, to protect the timeline, to make sure that the domino of each event fell in order. Loki supposed, when everyone had been returned to life after the Snap, that Strange had been asked how to defeat Thanos. But he couldn’t say, because perhaps anyone else knowing was enough to nudge events just enough off course that they wouldn’t happen.

Loki understood time travel and quantum physics and the Norns well enough to know that he didn’t truly understand them—that no one truly understood them, and that meddling was far more likely to lead to disaster than anything else. Strange understood this too. Letting out a breath, Loki closed his eyes and tried not to hate everything. He supposed it was the reason he’d never actually stabbed Strange, despite all the times he’d wanted to. Strange understood.

It was a hard pill to swallow.

“We weren’t friends, Strange,” Loki said.

“Are we now?”

Loki ignored this. “When you looked into the future—why would my survival enter into your decision at all?”

Strange’s brow furrowed and he didn’t speak for a minute. “Because it wasn’t about my friends. It was about…” He shook his head and blew a whoosh of air out of his mouth. “It wasn’t about me,” he said. “It was about doing what was best for the universe.”

Loki stared at him. The storm inside him gave a few dying rolls of thunder and receded, clouds scudding over his heart but expending the last of their fury. Suddenly, he just felt tired. He took several steps backwards and sank into a chair, his shoulders rolling into a slump as his hair curtained either side of his face. It was an echo of the position Thor had been in earlier. “Why didn’t you tell me what he was like?” he asked.

He felt like all he was doing was asking questions, one after another. Not only now, but his whole life. He was always in the dark. His life was a sequence of events which he had no control over, where he never knew the full story, never had the facts, never truly had agency over his fate.

Then again, better to have a million questions than never realize there were any that needed to be asked.

Had Strange really just said Loki being alive was best for the universe? It must have been a slip of the tongue. Him being around had never been for the better of anything.

He was still waiting for an answer to his question. Finally, Strange replied, “I tried to tell you. I didn’t really know how to.”

Loki thought about getting angry again, about raging that Strange had lied to him, or at the very least mislead him through omission of facts. A bitter smile flickered across his face. “Your bedside manner is abysmal.”

“Yeah. You’re not the first person to tell me that, believe it or not.” Cautiously, Strange moved across the kitchen until he slid back into his chair. “Look,” he said, but then paused. The silence stretched so long that Loki raised his head to stare at him, so he could at least attempt to read Strange’s face as he hesitated over what to say. It was impossible, as always, but Loki’s inability to quit doing something impossible was well-documented. Strange picked up his chopsticks and poked at his sushi, moving it around rather than eating it. “I told you he needs you.”

All Loki could do was nod in response to this. Yes. Strange _had_ told him that. But somehow, Loki hadn’t understood quite how much Thor needed him. And of course, there was the perennial fear that what Thor needed _wasn’t_ Loki, that Thor needed something completely different, or the exact opposite. Less Loki, perhaps. No Loki.

Suddenly, Strange pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, breathed out slowly, and then stilled. Then he lowered his hand, a purpose in his eyes that seemed resolute, even for him. “We’re going out,” he said.

Raising an eyebrow, Loki asked, “Oh, we are, are we?”

“Yeah.” Strange glanced out the kitchen window and Loki followed his gaze. It was finally snowing. “Hopefully she’ll forgive the rudeness of us dropping in unannounced.”

Loki felt his brow furrow. “Strange, I’m afraid you’re going to have to be a bit less cryptic if you want me to go with you.”

There was another silence as Strange stood up from the table, dropping the chopsticks. “We’re going to see Jane Foster.”

The room went airless, or perhaps Loki’s lungs just ceased to function. His throat worked to swallow and finally he asked, his tone far more strangled than he would have liked, “Jane? She’s alive?”

Strange cast some kind of show-off spell and a black peacoat materialized on his shoulders. As he pulled it on, he said, “Yep.” When Loki didn’t move, he jerked his head and said, “C’mon. I’d go by myself, but you’re definitely supposed to come with me.”

His lungs still felt like they weren’t working quite right. “What are you talking about?”

Strange said nothing for a second, trying to do the buttons up on his coat, before he failed and gave up, letting it hang open. “Jane Foster,” he said, “has better things to do than die of cancer. You brought her to New Asgard once, right?” When Loki’s mouth opened to deny this—because of course he had, but he shouldn’t have—Strange just smiled slightly. “Well, you get to bring her there again. I hope you remember where Thor’s hammer was destroyed.”

This, finally, spurred Loki to do more than gape soundlessly. “Thor’s _hammer?_ What the hel are you talking about? What has that got to do with anything?” He was doing nothing but asking questions again. This had to stop. But there was just something _about_ Stephen Strange—the man had always been able to wrong-foot him, to stymie him to the point that all his rage and grief died away and he was left with this irritating inability to grasp onto something, _anything_ , that would bring it back.

Meeting Loki’s eyes, Strange said, “I saw the future, Odinson, but I didn’t see every single detail. And that’s kind of left me to guess at when certain events are supposed to happen. Let’s hope I’m guessing right.”

Loki still didn’t get to his feet. His thoughts were ricocheting around his head. He felt dizzy. “Jane’s worthy. That’s what you’re saying. Jane’s worthy of lifting Mjølnir.”

“I’m not saying anything,” Strange said. “Except let’s go see her.”

With a slap, Loki’s palm came down flat on the table. He hadn’t meant it to be so loud, but it had gotten Strange’s attention, and that was what mattered. The two of them stared at each other, neither of them blinking. Then, finally, Loki asked in a low voice, “How much did you see?”

It was a minute before Strange answered, or perhaps two. But finally, he said slowly, “More than I should have.”

Loki kept his eyes fixed on Strange, but the other man didn’t say anything else. Nor would he, Loki knew. Everything he’d said about what he knew of the future had been when he decided he’d say it, not because someone else—Loki—had badgered it out of him. His head still felt like it was pulling itself in a hundred different directions. Thor was a complete and utter wreck and back on Earth. And Jane Foster was _alive_.

“Can you tell me one thing, Strange?” Loki asked. When Strange stared at him, neither affirming nor denying this, Loki licked his lips and hesitated. Then, he asked, “My part in…whatever is to come.” Something tightened in his chest. “Is it my destiny to cause more destruction? More ruin?”

Absurdly, he felt tears prick at his eyes, and his breath threatened to hitch in a sob. Why? Shouldn’t he be used to it? His part in the movement of the universe was _always_ to destroy something—and if that wasn’t enough, himself along with it. His family, his home, his people’s chance at survival, another universe. Even when he was doing what was ‘right,’ it fell to him to be the one who set everything on fire.

Strange didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. Perhaps it was better that he didn’t repeat himself by saying so.

But then, he took a step closer to Loki. He reached out, hesitated a second longer, and put a hand on Loki’s shoulder. Everything inside Loki told him to jerk away.

He didn’t.

Strange looked as though he didn’t quite know what he’d done. But he left his hand where it was, then said, “I know I’m just like…the amateur wizard who’s made your life miserable for the past five months, so this probably won’t mean a whole lot. But to reduce what you’ve done to nothing but causing ruin and destruction…you’re selling yourself short, Odinson.”

Snorting, still fighting to hold back idiotic tears, Loki said, “So, I’ll take that as a yes. Yes, I’ll cause more pain. I’ll destroy something else that I love.”

“No,” Strange said quietly. When Loki looked at him sharply, Strange offered him a small smile, sharp and crooked. “You understand, what I saw wasn’t definite—”

“Only possibilities,” Loki finished for him.

Strange’s hand was still on his shoulder. Faintly, Loki returned the smile and the need to cry receded a little. “You got it,” Strange said. His fingers squeezed Loki’s shoulder—or maybe it was just a spasm in his ruined hands. Or perhaps Loki was simply imagining it. Then, he withdrew his hand. “Ready to go?”

Finally, Loki stood. Jane Foster and Mjølnir. Of all the things he never would have seen coming…well. Perhaps he wasn’t always as prescient as he thought he was. He’d gotten so used to the idea of Jane being gone that it was barely starting to sink in that she wasn’t. “Is Jane going to live?” Loki asked. When Strange arched an eyebrow, Loki said, “Right. You can’t tell me.”

“I gave you a freebie today, anyway.”

“Are you suggesting if I ask again tomorrow, you _may_ tell?”

Strange chuckled and slipped his sling ring onto his fingers. Without a word, he spun a hand and opened a portal, then held a hand out to Loki, inviting him to go first. On the other side of the portal, snow was falling thickly. Some of it blew through, landing on the kitchen floor. Through the snow, a building was visible that Loki had never seen. There was no need for Strange to tell him that it was Jane Foster’s apartment building.

Loki’s fingers twisted together. Jane. _Alive_. He had mourned her as best he could, not knowing when she had passed from this life into the next, but unable to assume anything different. Though he doubted she’d put it on her list of greatest achievements, she’d helped him. She’d helped to show him a path that his anger and pain could walk, not so that he could walk away from it—because he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to do that—but so he could start to hold it at arm’s length, to look at it and accept it. She’d taught him that when things were out of your control, you owned that fact, leaned into it, and made that lack of control your own.

Whether he was succeeding in any of this was an open question. But he thought of her, her strength, her intelligence, her passion, her _worthiness_ , and he tried.

He hadn’t thought he’d ever see her again to tell her any of this.

With a swallow, Loki looked from the portal to Strange. “I thought it was bad form to open these up to get around the city,” he said, hoping Strange wouldn’t notice the way his fingers were fidgeting nervously.

Strange smiled slightly. “Yeah, but we’d have to transfer like three times on the train.”

Loki couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped him. Taking a deep breath and hoping Strange didn’t notice, he stepped through the portal. Strange followed him, planting his feet on the wet sidewalk next to Loki. The two of them looked at each other, and then Strange allowed the portal to close with a snap.

And though Loki had technically traveled into the future when he’d come here, it wasn’t until this moment that he really felt like he’d stepped into it. Or that he was stepping into it, currently; each forward movement bringing him out of the past and towards something new. Whatever holding pattern he’d been in for the past several months was coming to an end.

He drew another deep breath, not caring if Strange saw him do it this time. Then, he nodded to Strange and followed him to what the future held.

**Author's Note:**

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> You should also come hang out with me on [tumblr](https://aurorawest.tumblr.com/)! I like to talk about Loki.
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